Gold Weights Metal Caster Kofi Dwumfour

Gold Weights Metal Caster Kofi Dwumfour

If there is any one person who has helped keep the art of casting gold weights alive, that person is Kofi Dwumfour. Kofi is the resident metal (brass) caster at the National Cultural Center in Kumasi. He was born in 1964 and lived briefly in Abidjan, La Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), where his father worked as a blacksmith. When his family moved back to Ghana they settled in Krofrom. Krofrom, in the Kumasi suburb, is one of the crafts villages that are dotted around the Asante capital.

Just when Kofi started formal schooling at the local primary school, he was also apprenticed to Agya Ofori, a renowned metalcaster at Krofrom. Agya Ofori taught Kofi the cire perdue (lost wax) process of metal casting. Kofi learned to cast gold weights (abrammoo), masks and containers like "kuduo." After he graduated from the apprenticeship, he set up his own shop in another part of the town. He has been the resident metal caster at the National Cultural Center for about nine years.

Kofi's work is singularly important because it marks the transition between the art of yesterday and that of today. Kofi creates works which, though based on the traditionally accepted forms, have an air of modernity about them. He, for example, makes gold weighs with hooks on them so that they can be worn as lockets on neck chains.